Hannah Riley
Country life is much different than city life. City life moves faster and has a totally different structure than country life. Things like seeing the stars at night and having to drive 30 minutes to get to a grocery store are totally unheard of in the city.
I don’t know about you, but everything being so quiet at night sounds pretty weird to get used to. I need the sounds of my upstairs neighbor doing his nightly pogo stick routine in order to get good quality sleep.
People have their reasons for living where they do and people can be really opinionated about which they like better. “Country folk” are sharing the things about living in the country that “city folk” could never understand and here are some of the best answers:
1. My aunt calls is her “mormon supply closet.”
The extent of our pantries and freezers.
We can’t just “run to the store” to pick up that forgotten ingredient or spur-of-the-moment craving.
But if we’re well-stocked, we can whip up just about anything!
2. Y’all are like sardines.
I’m not sure how “out in the country” it is, but I live half an hour north of a town with a population density of 15 per square mile. I actually moved here six months ago from Toronto. Since moving here, I realized how peaceful life can be. When I’m not working, I’m out on the farm with birds, pigs and horses. It’s absolutely eerie, hearing all these different bird songs, and horses galloping and having a moose crash your party as opposed to a million voices, highway traffic and a methhead. It is so different in a positive way. While we are definitely social creatures, I don’t think we were meant to be packed that close together, away from nature.
3. It can be scary until you identify them all.
The amount of animal noises at night.
4. You’re rude if you don’t!
Waving at people when you see them on the road.
5. Small town festivals are some of the best things in the world.
Small Town Texas here
Shitty Internet
Friday Night Lights Ghost Towns
The smell of the rain
Country Road parties
Driving for an hour and not seeing another car
Small Town Festivals
Knowing everyone business and everyone knowing yoursSnakes are your friend
Dead Coyotes hanging from fence posts
The sky at night is inspirational
6. It’s only boring if you are
I think that living someplace small means you tend to be more self sufficient about finding your own entertainment. You don’t have movie theaters or bowling alleys or things like that. We have a gas station and a couple of diners and an ice cream shop that is open in the summer.
Folks tend to go fishing more, do more hiking, camping, and backyard bbq. I also think that we tend to be more fanatical about our high school sports, they are the only game in town really.
7. All foxes are screamers.
The scream you hear in the middle of the night isn’t a woman being murdered.
It’s just foxes shagging.
8. And if you have a garden or flowers you’ll understand pretty quickly why people hunt them.
Seeing Deer isn’t a special occasion, those fuckers are always showing up.
9. It’s like living in opposite world.
In the city, you ignore the sirens and listen for the gunshots.
Out in the country you ignore the gunshots and listen for the sirens.
10. Best to just walk away, son.
Oh man I saw a bobcat the last time it was snowy and cold, I still get shivers when I think about that beast. He was huge!
And he just stood there smoke coming out from his nostrils in the cold night air, right beside the road, staring me down, like what the fuck you gonna do son?
I drove off first, he was definitely the alpha male in that situation.
11. It’s a more specific version of “drive safe!”
“Watch out for deer” when saying goodbye is another way of telling someone you love them
12. The sound of silence.
I’ve been living in a busy street of Milan to move to Switzerland in a small town near the mountains. The silence in the night was something weird and actually annoying my first nights there.
So I’d say total silence around you at night.
Also nature smells : grass or animals for example
Oh and having actual animals in town like cows or horses.
Oh and… ok I’ll stop there and let the others talk
13. Makes sense why they view them differently.
This doesn’t go for all small town, but the one I live in there is no law enforcement.
We fall under the jurisdiction of a neighboring town but it’s like 45 minutes away.
So the people out here just deal with incidents on their own.
To be honest though, it’s pretty rare that any instances occur.
14. No one freaks out over dogs barking!
Wildlife is wildlife… Don’t call bylaw for: moose, coyotes, wolves, deer, skunk, raccoon etc.
Dogs bark. Your 4 lb chihuahua may not be loud but it’s 100% more barking than my 80 lb husky mix.
When it snows, road will be plowed. It will NOT be a dry, black stretch of road but it WILL have less snow on it.
15. The stars in the country are like nothing else.
The dark.
In a city at night you can read a book outside. In the country on a cloudy or no moon night. You can’t see anything.
Not like it’s kinda hard to see, but it’s so dark you might as well be blind; the stars and gravity are the only way to know which direction is up.
Also a clear night sky in places that get truly dark like that is something my vocabulary can’t describe.
16. You have to be able to drive.
Its basically impossible to live if you can’t drive, I live a few miles out of the village so I have to get lifts to work, to go see friends and everything. The only bus only leaves the village every 2-3 hours to go into the city and is ridiculously expensive.
But it is gorgeous and can be so peaceful, i often take my dog up the hill behind my house, there’s no roads and only a couple of other houses and its so quiet and relaxing, i can lie there for ages on a nice day. I also have a horse and its great to go for a mental out-of-control gallop through the fields and the forests.
17. You should probably stop.
When a road sign says “Last Gas” for however many miles
It means it.
18. A whole new level of boredom.
How small it really is.
When I graduated in 2014, my class was 14 people. And we were one of the largest grades at the school, the grade below only had 6 people, the grade above me only had 4. I originally grew up in a hamlet, population 20 people and then moved to a village where I went to school, roughly 300 people.
We have one bar, one grocery store that closes at 6pm, a carwash, a bank(in the neighboring villager 15 minutes away) post office and school in town. Everyone else is either oilfield workers or farmers.
And it’s butt fuck boring, for fun in the summers we used to bike down the highway for hours to no where and then turn around and bike home.
19. You best be in bed at that time or you’re up to no good.
When you hear a car door slam in the middle of the night, something is wrong.
